


Betrayal

by executrix



Category: Blakes7
Genre: AU, F/M, Fusion, Shakespeare
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-04
Updated: 2011-07-04
Packaged: 2017-10-21 01:06:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,038
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/219212
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/executrix/pseuds/executrix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>FSA cadet Del Tarrant is able to help a disconsolate widow, Madame Councillor Petrucci.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Betrayal

PART FOUR: TO KEEP MY LOVE ALIVE  
4.1  
Once she had taken the oath of office, Madame Councillor Petrucci--or, as she was now, Councillor Katherine Petrucci in her own right--swept back the black veil that depended from her black velvet tricorn hat. The flat part was in front, the point in back, so the veil would lie flat. It would not flop back over her pale, youthful face in an undignified manner during the photo opportunity.

"My beloved husband gave his life for the Federation," she said. "Do we have a level?" she asked the chap from the FBC. When he nodded, she switched the Orotund back on and continued.

"So to honor his memory I must give my life to the Federation. The memory of his mission--and our love--must be made immortal. We do not yet know--perhaps we shall never know--who took the life of this magnificent servant of the Federation, but we will be certain to combat treachery from outside and crime within, to keep our borders, schools, and homes safe. "

That should shut the little bastards up for another week, Kate thought. And if Pete were still here--rather than gathering moss, so to speak--he might even applaud the sacrifice of his own useless life.

The new Councillor Petrucci never liked it when her plans went astray, but she was willing to re-assign herself the credit when the actuality was better than the projection. There was supposed to be a defined, identified fall guy for the laser blast that transmuted her husband from the ill wind she had blown far too often for her taste to a martyr for the Federation.

The way it worked out, though, although she now had one more enemy, (but then again, one fewer enemy, if you count Pete) she also had a much better power position. Everyone on the Council had a cherished repressive measure tucked in his back pocket, and each one would welcome an excuse to put it into practice.

The combination of her new status on the Council and her military background would give her the inside track to a high position within Space Command. She would be sure to reactivate her Reserve status (under her maiden name) as soon as she was out of deep mourning. A married woman couldn't be a serving officer...but a widow could be.

4.2

They never did track down the miscreant, but quite a few of the usual suspects died under interrogation, and the sentencing option of transportation for life was extended to Categories Five through Eight offenses, thus rendering the streets a little safer. A hundred and one uses for a dead councillor, so to speak.

PART THREE: A BAIT ON PURPOSE LAID  
3.1

"You shouldn't be here, it's too dangerous," Kate breathed.

"I thrive on danger," Del told her just before spreading her backwards across the dining room table and closing his teeth on the soft skin above her collarbone. She had a maid, let the maid sew the buttons back on.

"Anyone might see us...the servants..."

"You must have them well-bribed already," Del said reasonably. "It's not as if I'd never been here before."

"Ma'am?" came the housekeeper's voice outside the dining room door. "It's the eleventh of the month, ma'am. The provisioners are here, and we need your signature on the accounts."

"Let me go," she whispered harshly.

"Perhaps I won't," Del said. "And you don't really want me to, anyway." He shoved his hand up her skirt.

3.2

Kate didn't know what to do. She couldn't stay in the room, or the housekeeper would come in to inquire--the housekeeper had seen her go in and hadn't seen her come out, after all. But she couldn't leave, in case Del started to wander idly about the room examining things. Was there any way she could unobtrusively go to the back of the room and shut off the terminal? No, of course there wasn't. Oh, of all the bloody bad luck...it was going to be a perfect plan, and now it was completely stuffed up, she'd have to think of something else...

3.3

Del gave a fond but exasperated glance to the scatter of vellum invitations and envelopes on the mirror-like finish of the endlessly stretching dining room table. Another dinner party he wouldn't be invited to. Well, maybe he'd get to guard it...and a minimum of a hand job in the strongroom as she put away her jewelry.

There was a blue gleam from the terminal built in to the antique drop-front desk. He didn't have anything else to do, and he didn't know how long it would take Kate to deal with the provisioners, so he wandered over.

The first thing he noticed was the date of the file: six weeks later. Very funny, he thought. I wonder if she has the stock quotes and the race results for that day.

The second thing he noticed was his own name. In the very unflattering context of a police report. His motive, his opportunity, his fingerprints (on the underside of the toilet seat in Kate's powder room...) Where the hell did Kate get a half-written police report detailing the investigation of a crime that hadn't happened yet?

And not just any crime. Fucking hell. That was treason, that, not just murder he was being stitched up for. Having his picture on the Patrol Scouts poster was one thing, starting out in a live viscast and ending up starring in an extremely executed one was less to his taste. The real-time broadcast, to be followed by clips of his first scream and final breath on every newscast until the next object lesson replaced him.

The only hope, he decided, was to get right out of the picture before the crime he was supposed to have committed happened in the first place. He knew that he daren't take a suitcase, only whatever clothes he could layer onto his back at the same time.

Fortunately, it was edging toward winter, so wearing his parade overcoat would attract no suspicion at first. In fact, it would conceal the fact that he was in civvies. Later on, it would become a serious liability, he'd need some other way to keep warm.

Luckily he had just drawn his pay, and there was some money in a safe deposit box, and a couple of birthday checks that he could cash without undue suspicion.

Outside! He shivered at the thought. But he'd have to go Outside to really make an escape. And Outside, there were bodies of water. To fabricate a transporter accident, you'd need a body mangled past recognition, and Del didn't quite feel up to the task of creating one.

Drowning it is, then, he thought. I'll sneak out of barracks as per usual, but tomorrow I'll be reported missing, and sooner or later the External Patrols will find my neatly folded uniform (but they won't find the sidearm--she has the one issued to me, I'm keeping good hold on the substitute). And they'll find the note saying that I can no longer live with the guilt of a sordid affair that is treasonous as well as adulterous. No, they probably won't, Del thought. She'll see to that. But if her husband keeps breathing for a week after the inquest on me...

There's no one so safe as a dead man.

PART TWO: YOU DON'T LOOK LAZY  
2.1

Del knew that she wasn't making that hat up--in fact, his girlfriend Lis had one very much like it, only blue--but it was still incredibly daft looking. It had a feather or two stuck in it, but mostly it was an outrageous labial labyrinth of deep red velvet. Del wondered if she took a baboon over to the shop, upended it, and told them to match its bum.

It was Del's job to stand at one side of the door while his friend Garivan Lok stood at the other. They both wore full uniform in the stifling room. Del's boots were new and not fully broken in yet. He and Garivan usually got picked for assignments that called for tall, handsome blokes to stand around and do sod-all in a suitably dignified manner.

Kate sat on the dais, gazing up adoringly at Petrucci. It was a sort of meditation: she focused on the spot between his eyes (right where he'd look good in something...say, .38 caliber), varnished the expression onto her face, and let her mind drift.

When all the speeches were over, Kate came over to the door, looked them both up and down, told Garivan to stand at ease, and dismissed him. She ordered Del back to her house to supervise the delivery of the Petrucci family silverware from the vault for that evening's banquet.

From one point of view, it was unbelievably insulting. He was Alpha bred, second son of one of the most prominent families in the Dome. From another point of view, of course, he was just an FSA cadet, outranked by everyone and the housecat.

When he held the door of her limousine open for her to glide in gracefully, he leaned forward and whispered in her ear. "You shouldn't dress like that."

"What, this? It's a simple day costume..."

"Then you shouldn't wear that body."

"You're not very bright, are you?" she asked. "I like that in a man."

He smirked. "What else d'you like? I've got lazy, ugly, randy...."

2.2

He knew what her game was. All these trophy wives--nothing to do all day but paint their nails and spend money. A few forced marches through the swamps with a heavy pack on her back would sort her out nicely.

2.3

The décor in the restaurant was supposed to be authentic pre-Atomic Italian (when there used to be countries, one of them used to be called Italy) and so was the food, but, really, how would anyone know? They could have made up anything.

The message from Lis, brought by a blue-skinned, floppy-tailed flunky who looked at Del as if he didn't belong anyplace that posh, said that her aunt was sick, she had to rush to the bedside, she wouldn't be meeting him for dinner. Del's smirk indicated just what he thought of the veracity of that. He gave the waiter a five-credit note but it didn't really improve his standing.

Oh, well. If Lis wouldn't be there, he could drink up the cost of her never-to-be-eaten dinner. Four old-fashioneds later, he saw the Petruccis sweep into the restaurant. Kate wore a striking black-and-white Gurnivian cyber-tooth leopard coat, over a sapphire satin dress with long sapphire-and-diamond earrings.

"Hullo, Tarrant," Petrucci said coldly. "What are you doing here? A little rich for your FSA stipend."

"Oh, my family gives me an allowance. I can just about manage to eat here once a month, if I don't order a starter," Del said. The man annoyed him--Del didn't like his manner, or his stupid flashy eyeglasses (they would have done nicely for a 30-year-old pimp; a 55-year-old Councillor was another matter) or the smoke of his Corona-Corona blown in Del's face. And Del did like his wife.

"Ever been to your namesake, lad?" Petrucci asked.

"No, sir," Del said. "Never been off-planet, in fact."

"I've been invited to the monetary policy conference on Del-10," Petrucci said. "Two weeks, leaving a week from Wednesday. Nobody but a few hand-picked experts, of course. None of your everyday ward heelers."

"Your table is ready, sir," said the same flunky, this time convulsed in an ecstasy of supplication.

"I don't know what you're going to do," Kate whispered over her shoulder. "But I know what a man would."

2.4

Del was proud of himself: he withstood it until Friday. He fabricated a record showing that he was on the shooting range, and braced himself for a long, long walk but managed to catch a lift on a supply lorry. He climbed over the wall at the Petruccis' mansion and she must have been expecting him, because there were no guards or robots or watchdogs on the premises.

When the motion detection sensor picked up the heat radiated by his body, Kate went to stand on the veranda, arms akimbo, a challenging smile (or was that sneer?) on her face. It turned into a laugh as he threw a lawn chair through the window and her laugh was picked up by the wind chimes behind her (and by the alarm).

They went only as far as the last of the broken glass on the floor and then they grappled one another down to the floor.

"Oh, you're a randy bitch, aren't you?" Del said, finding nothing beneath her dress but a hearty welcome.

Kate wished he wouldn't talk but resigned herself to it. Just his...potential...was enough to make her scream and clutch his shoulders. Oh, he was so young, you could cut yourself on his jawline, the milky skin with its slight sheen was tight over his muscles, there was nothing slack or drooping anywhere, and he was so hard and so accommodating and so very, very likely to be splendidly useful.

PART ONE: I AM ASHAMED THAT WOMEN ARE SO SIMPLE

1.1  
"  
Shut up, Anky," Kate said. "I didn't go through four years at the Academy and several years of none-too-choice assignments just to pack it all in now."

""Slime and lasers, slime and lasers, yes, yes, we've heard it all before. But this is a damn good match," Bianca said. "Papa, tell her she has to do it, we'll never find her another husband and anyway I can't get married till she does and we won't get the cover of Dome Life if we don't confirm the date by Tuesday." When she was nervous, Bianca twirled her engagement ring--an emerald sandwiched between two doorstops of diamond, none of your dainty tea sandwiches thank you--so there was a red line worn around her finger.

"I wouldn't gush and giggle as much," Senator Servalan said, "But she's right, more or less. And, you know, a female officer has to surrender her commission as soon as she marries."

"A completely unfair rule, that results in a tremendous waste of resources..." Kate began, stopping when Bianca sniggered.

"Tommy says that the girls at FSA are a bunch of dowdy dykes anyway, so fat chance of their getting married."

"Yes, that is the level of repartee we've come to know and love from Thomas Joban-Grant."

1.2  
On the way to the final fitting for her wedding dress, Kate passed a toyshop. There was a bride doll in the window, decked out in a very vulgar confection of cheap lace that made the doll's plastic hips look as wide as a brood mare's.

"Lovely Patsy," it said on the package. You and me both, Kate thought.

It took her a very long time, but she found another.

1.3

Kate invited Petrucci's current mistress for a ladies' lunch at a bijou restaurant, to reassure her that she did not see her as a rival at all, and for a quick grope on the chaise longue in the ladies' room to keep her off balance. There may have been some other motives involved as well. The girl really was very pretty.

1.4  
The first event after the Petruccis' honeymoon was the pre-wedding party they hosted for Tommy and Bianca.

"Kate, darling, you look so thin," Bianca said.

"I had to diet to get into the dress!" Kate said cheerfully.

"And tired..."

"Oh, there are a million details about running a gracious home and entertaining in the public eye. Well, you'll find out. Sooner or later. Oh, and these cold dishes do take such a lot of preparation."

Kate adored her new bandage dress. It had simply everything. It was fashionable and daring, thus accenting the difference between her youth and her husband's age, her firm flesh and his wrinkles. It hinted at kinky sex (or proclaimed it out loud) while in fact protecting her against some of the manifestations of one-way sadism.

Kate, like every respectable Federation wife, was safe from being hit anywhere that marks would show. This dress showed practically everything, it was a suit of gauze armor. And it cost a fucking fortune.

She could sack and pillage his bank account, and spend as much as possible on items with resale value. Discreetly, she could fund his political enemies and connive behind his back. But there wasn't much she could do about the exercise of his marital rights

She could hardly go back to the family that sold her in the first place, and the law was on his side and not hers. All she could hope for was some combination of brewer's droop, advancing age, mutual loathing, and careful cultivation of the art of testicular bonsai.

Thomas posed for the Dome Life holographer, one arm around Bianca's waist and the other dangling over her shoulder. Kate sidled up to him and whispered, "Why don't you just piss on her and have done?" His rictus appeared in Cassandra's column: Madame Councillor Petrucci and Thomas Joban-Grant Share a Joke.

"Well, now that you're married, you see what's it's all about, eh?" Thomas said.

"You could say that," Kate said. "I mean, look what trying to be an independent woman got me. Only imagine, Anky, you're going to be married soon. And then you'll have a husband too, someone who will commit his body to painful labor both by sea and land--look at Pete, you can see right away how much labor he does--and craves no other tribute at thy hands but love, fair looks, and true obedience. Too little payment for so great a debt. Thanks, Thomas, you've convinced me. Now I know what it means to be a real woman. Now I see our lances are but straws, our strength as weak, our weakness past compare."

"Why, there's a wench!" Councillor Petrucci said uneasily, striving for heartiness and the common touch.

1.5  
It was a long ten years.

**Author's Note:**

> The section numbers run in reverse order because, like Pinter's play "Betrayal," the story begins at the end and moves backward. Assuming that the Kathleen Turner film noir "Body Heat" takes place at the same time as "The Taming of the Shrew" as a Blakes7 story...


End file.
